Speaker 1: Hey, this is Mike Carry from much I had sheet Porta,
Speaker 1: I play at the link, sit point and beach. This
Speaker 1: is GOP smurdering number nine nine zero. And I think
Speaker 1: this is a big part because of podcasting. Now we
Speaker 1: get wisdom talked about a little bit more that we
Speaker 1: maybe have over the last ten twenty thirty years, you know,
Speaker 1: the last twenty years. It's all about where you have lessons.
Speaker 1: You do this, you hit these numbers, you do this
Speaker 1: on track, man, you hit this line on a video screen.
Speaker 1: To be honest, for some people, it works. For most
Speaker 1: they don't have time to really change anything fundamentally, and
Speaker 1: so you can have this great lesson, but you know,
Speaker 1: after you've hit your bucket of balls, you're probably not
Speaker 1: going to hit another bucket of balls correctly until you
Speaker 1: see the next lesson. And so people, I think, get
Speaker 1: frustrated and they're paying all this money for a swing lesson.
Speaker 1: And yeah, my numbers look better and this line looks
Speaker 1: better on the screen. But I keep shooting the same score,
Speaker 1: and I keep hitting the same shots, and I keep
Speaker 1: making the same mistakes. There's a lot more podcasts involved
Speaker 1: with wisdom and experience and filling fives into fours. A
Speaker 1: different approach to be able to help you score better.
Speaker 2: Meet the course, not yourself. Written by one of the
Speaker 2: PGA tours older rookies, Gary Christian. This is Golf Smarter,
Speaker 2: sharing stories, tips and insights from great golf minds to
Speaker 2: help you lower your score and raise your golf IQ.
Speaker 2: There's your host, Fred Green. Welcome to the Golf Smarter podcast.
Speaker 1: Gary Well, thank you so much. Fred, great to be
Speaker 1: with you. Look forward to having a nice chat.
Speaker 2: I'm looking forward to as well, because I truly enjoyed
Speaker 2: the book, but we'll talk about that later. I want
Speaker 2: to talk about your fascinating history in the golf world.
Speaker 2: You've done so many different things, but what's got to
Speaker 2: start the conversation is that you were the oldest rookie
Speaker 2: ever in the PGA Tour.
Speaker 1: Well, I think I was one of the oldest, let's
Speaker 1: say true rookies, never having played a PGA Tour until
Speaker 1: I was forty years old. So you'll see a lot
Speaker 1: of people you know sneak in and make a US
Speaker 1: open every now and again. That counts that you played
Speaker 1: appreciator event or Monday qualified And yes I was on
Speaker 1: the not overly accelerated path to the PGA Tour. So
Speaker 1: it was it was quite the journey to have a
Speaker 1: lot of you know, dead ends and going backwards, to
Speaker 1: go forwards and go sideways, and we finally made it.
Speaker 1: So great journey. A lot of the time, the journeys,
Speaker 1: I think more fun than the actual destination.
Speaker 2: Sometimes it is you learn a lot more from the
Speaker 2: journey than you do from the destination, I think, especially
Speaker 2: in golf exactly.
Speaker 1: Yeah, And I think it makes you the person that
Speaker 1: you are. It forms your character. So the ability to
Speaker 1: have the tenas the and the perseverance and the resilience
Speaker 1: that you showed in your golf career then translates to
Speaker 1: life as well. So I think that's the great thing
Speaker 1: about golf. I had so many parallels to life, and
Speaker 1: it is in many respects a metaphor for life.
Speaker 2: Right right, So you must have hit so many roadblocks
Speaker 2: along the way. What was that your drive kept going
Speaker 2: that you just knew that you had the ability to
Speaker 2: get there?
Speaker 1: Yeah, I think, I mean, you know, the roadblocks I had,
Speaker 1: you know, just always had was not being a particularly
Speaker 1: imposing physical specimen, you know, maybe not having the finances
Speaker 1: that could help me to do whatever I needed to
Speaker 1: do when I needed to do it, and you know,
Speaker 1: a talent level that was obviously a very high talent level.
Speaker 1: But when you threw me in against some other players
Speaker 1: and some other college players and many tour players there,
Speaker 1: you know there was only one person that was going
Speaker 1: to make the two and it wasn't me. And so
Speaker 1: you always of battling and and it just I always
Speaker 1: had the ability to win. I think just because I
Speaker 1: was just naturally a tough personality. I always say I
Speaker 1: hated losing more than I enjoyed winning, and you learn
Speaker 1: a lot from that, and but you know, it takes
Speaker 1: a lot out of you. So you know, it's funny
Speaker 1: now that I don't really enjoy competing that much in
Speaker 1: many respects. I think I used up my reserves of
Speaker 1: energy and emotional and energy to be able to get
Speaker 1: where I got to. So you know, now when my
Speaker 1: son beats me a ping pong, I don't solve for
Speaker 1: half an hour like I used to. So that's kind
Speaker 1: of nice. It makes you a little bit better human
Speaker 1: being as well, which is even better. But yeah, I
Speaker 1: always had the belief in myself that I had something
Speaker 1: of what it would take to get to the highest level,
Speaker 1: and we just were trying to put our finger on
Speaker 1: what was that little bit of glue that would put
Speaker 1: the final pieces together that would allow everything to work.
Speaker 1: You know, you can be you know, maybe undersized, maybe
Speaker 1: under talented, maybe under financed, maybe under coached, but if
Speaker 1: you have one thing that kind of puts everything together
Speaker 1: to give you what it is you do have, but
Speaker 1: has everything working together at the same time, like everyone's
Speaker 1: put in the same direction, you can achieve great things.
Speaker 1: And that's what I think I did with the mental
Speaker 1: side of the game to dedicate myself to that to
Speaker 1: be able to push me over the edge. You see
Speaker 1: a lot of incredibly talented players with amazing swings, amazing
Speaker 1: you know, coaching, but they don't have that thing that
Speaker 1: allows it to happen when they need it to happen.
Speaker 1: And you know, it's almost like it's almost like the
Speaker 1: game's too easy for them, and they kind of overlook
Speaker 1: certain other things that I would never have overlooked, and
Speaker 1: you know, I would just be jealous of kind of
Speaker 1: I could just have that talent or that swing or
Speaker 1: that bank balance to be able to go and see
Speaker 1: who I want when I want and try and improve constantly.
Speaker 1: You know, I could have done some really great things
Speaker 1: with that, and I would have been a rookie at
Speaker 1: thirty or not forty.
Speaker 2: So in that journey you must have played a lot.
Speaker 2: Let me ask you this first. What year was it
Speaker 2: when you were forty that you made it onto the tour?
Speaker 2: What were we talking?
Speaker 1: That was twenty eleven. So I'm on myland Classic on
Speaker 1: the Cornferry to and I've had a good year up
Speaker 1: to that stage, and that win put me comfortably inside
Speaker 1: the top twenty five on the points list or the
Speaker 1: moneylist back back then. But it was special because it
Speaker 1: was in Pittsburgh. Arnold Palmer was the honorary tournament chairman,
Speaker 1: and so there was just something. I'm a student of
Speaker 1: the game, a student of history, and to have that
Speaker 1: connection with what I had just achieved. And someone took
Speaker 1: a photo of me making my six inch part to
Speaker 1: get my PGA Tour card and win the tournament, and
Speaker 1: they sent it to me. I sent it to mister
Speaker 1: Palmer and he signed it like he does. He did,
Speaker 1: you know, for so many people. So it's just that special,
Speaker 1: special memento that They've got a lot of special things,
Speaker 1: but that's certainly one of the more important ones.
Speaker 2: Absolutely, absolutely, so when we're talking about twenty eleven, there
Speaker 2: were probably a lot in those years that you were
Speaker 2: competing at that level before you made it to the
Speaker 2: PGA Tour. There must have been a lot of young
Speaker 2: players coming up that were just walking right by you
Speaker 2: and getting onto the tour. Were there players that you're going,
Speaker 2: I'm better than him? Why am I not going there?
Speaker 1: Well, I mean there's been nine here. There were plenty
Speaker 1: of players that you know, you knew were very good players.
Speaker 1: We were obviously to make you live in at the game.
Speaker 1: You're all very good players, and it's just a fine
Speaker 1: it's such a fine line. You know, for that person
Speaker 1: that finished hundredth on the one hundred and first on
Speaker 1: the corn free to have lost their card, they were
Speaker 1: just as good of a player as the guy that
Speaker 1: finished in the top twenty five and got their card.
Speaker 1: That's the final line of the nature of professional golf.
Speaker 1: And you know, you look at it, it may come
Speaker 1: down to you know, one nine holes and might come
Speaker 1: down to one hole, but you know, you've just got
Speaker 1: to just got to maintain that belief. And you know,
Speaker 1: I didn't really worry too much about that the young
Speaker 1: guns coming through and taking taking my spots on the
Speaker 1: PGA Tour because I knew I was going to get
Speaker 1: there eventually, and I just, you know, as as I
Speaker 1: played the years on the corn Free Tourt, I got
Speaker 1: more comfortable with the courses. I got more comfortable being
Speaker 1: in contention. And you just have to use prior experience
Speaker 1: to be able to perform better when you get an
Speaker 1: opportunity the next time. And that was always my goal.
Speaker 1: Whatever happened, I always learned something from the experience, whether
Speaker 1: it was good or bad, and then applied that the
Speaker 1: next time. You know, I'd vow to not make that mistake.
Speaker 1: The next time, I would I would sit back after that.
Speaker 1: I was very good about looking at things objectively. I
Speaker 1: didn't take things emotionally. So, you know, you may go
Speaker 1: into the tournament in the final group or two with
Speaker 1: a chance to win a Corn Forrery Tour event, which
Speaker 1: may may or may not get a PGA Tour card,
Speaker 1: and you end up not playing great. You know, a
Speaker 1: lot of people it will crush them. Because of the
Speaker 1: resilience I had, I was just able to kind of
Speaker 1: sit back, say, hey, you know, I try my best.
Speaker 1: You know, things didn't work out that day. Now let's
Speaker 1: go over that round. Let's see what I could have
Speaker 1: done better. You know, maybe in course management, maybe in
Speaker 1: decision making, you know, but usually the most of the
Speaker 1: most of the answers were in you know, maybe deviating
Speaker 1: from my routine, getting distracted, get in a little bit
Speaker 1: taken by the situation, and then you kind of say, okay,
Speaker 1: next time. You know, My goal was to try and play,
Speaker 1: you know, in effect, play a little bit like an
Speaker 1: emotionless robot, even though I'm an outgoing, friendly guy in
Speaker 1: between shots, That's what I am. But when I get
Speaker 1: when I was getting into the shots, my job was
Speaker 1: to take everything out of play, every distraction, every thought
Speaker 1: of score, every thought of position, every thought of what if,
Speaker 1: and say, I'm going to dedicate myself to giving myself
Speaker 1: the best chance to make the best decision on this shot,
Speaker 1: to visualize this shot as clearly as possible, to feel
Speaker 1: exactly what it is I'm trying to do with this swing,
Speaker 1: and then to get set up and then connect to
Speaker 1: the target and let it go, and then whatever happens happens.
Speaker 1: But what I could do is I could look myself
Speaker 1: in the mirror after that shot and say, hey, I
Speaker 1: did anything I could do. I cannot do anything more
Speaker 1: than this, and sometimes go it's a hard game. And
Speaker 1: sometimes sometimes is a degree out and that past two
Speaker 1: degrees out and the ball goes twenty yards offline. That's
Speaker 1: just part of the game. And I worked really hard
Speaker 1: on that, and I would grade myself on how I
Speaker 1: perform my routine, and I would try and get seventy
Speaker 1: five percent of shots hit, whether they were drives, iron shots,
Speaker 1: chips or puts as an a as grade in it
Speaker 1: as an ad man, I did everything right there. It's
Speaker 1: impossible to do for one hundred percent of the shots,
Speaker 1: but seventy five percent was kind of my checklist. And
Speaker 1: I'll go through my yardage book at the end on
Speaker 1: my pin sheet and our grade every shot, and at
Speaker 1: the end, I was saying, man, that was a good
Speaker 1: round of golf today. I got seventy eight percent of
Speaker 1: routines done to my liking.
Speaker 2: You mentioned being emotionless when you're playing, even though you're
Speaker 2: an outgoing guy. At what stage of your development as
Speaker 2: a golfer from I'm sure you started as a very
Speaker 2: young age, started playing through the time that you finally
Speaker 2: made it to the Tour and beyond that, what was
Speaker 2: the point in that development that you realized how or
Speaker 2: learned how to be emotionless while you're playing golf.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I think it's when I dedicated myself to the
Speaker 1: mental side of the game. In twenty oh four, I'd
Speaker 1: failed again at second stage of qualifying school and I
Speaker 1: had a five drive back home, and you know, I'm
Speaker 1: looking forward to blawing on the Mini Tours. But yet
Speaker 1: another year, at thirty four years old or thirty three
Speaker 1: years old or whatever, I had a wife and a
Speaker 1: newborn son, and you know, obviously what I was doing
Speaker 1: wasn't working. Because it was working well enough to make
Speaker 1: money on the Mini Tours, which is almost impossible, and
Speaker 1: to win events every single year, but it just wasn't
Speaker 1: enough to get over that hump of getting through second
Speaker 1: stage of qualifying school. So when I dedicated myself to that,
Speaker 1: I was able to see a different path, see a
Speaker 1: path where to be in control of one's mental makeup,
Speaker 1: one's emotional makeup, the ability to react positivetively not negatively,
Speaker 1: to talk kindly to yourself, all of these things that
Speaker 1: we see in every gold psychology book we read. But
Speaker 1: what brought life to it was reading the Eight Traits
Speaker 1: of Champion Golfers by Graham and John Stabler, and I
Speaker 1: just kind of just threw myself into it. And the
Speaker 1: more I read of that, the more of these little
Speaker 1: vignettes would come out to help me on the golf course.
Speaker 1: And it wasn't theory. It was it was practical, practical advice.
Speaker 1: You do this, this will happen. You do this differently,
Speaker 1: this will happen differently. And that's what I wanted. I
Speaker 1: just wanted a roadmap. And to that point I didn't
Speaker 1: have a roadmap. I was kind of a little bit
Speaker 1: lost in exactly what it is I needed to do.
Speaker 1: And this helped just focus me a little bit more
Speaker 1: to instead of, you know, trying lots of different things
Speaker 1: and wasting energy kind of as I said, going forwards
Speaker 1: and then saying, well that doesn't work, let's back out
Speaker 1: this space and go to another another tunnel and see
Speaker 1: if that works. This now was was what it is
Speaker 1: that I needed, and that was that gave me the
Speaker 1: ability to be way more efficient in the time spent
Speaker 1: with preparation to play golf at the highest levels. As
Speaker 1: I said, I had family commitments where I didn't need
Speaker 1: to be out of the house for eight hours a day,
Speaker 1: and so I cut back on my physical practice and
Speaker 1: spend more time at home. But I would go to
Speaker 1: a quiet spot and really work hard in developing the
Speaker 1: skills necessary to be able to translate that on the
Speaker 1: golf course of visualization and relaxation and just awareness, awareness
Speaker 1: of how it is you're thinking. You know, we are
Speaker 1: not very mindful of what's going on. We're not mindful
Speaker 1: of what we're eating. I eat too quickly, I don't
Speaker 1: maybe listen the way I should do. I don't open
Speaker 1: my senses, and all of a sudden, when you become mindful,
Speaker 1: you're suddenly aware of God tell you what my body
Speaker 1: is extremely tight here, or I'm now very aware of
Speaker 1: these very poor messages I'm telling myself. And I used
Speaker 1: to do that. You know, I would get frustrated playing
Speaker 1: go if I wouldn't show out and break clubs or
Speaker 1: throw clubs or custs or anything. But there was that inward,
Speaker 1: in a conversation between me and myself about how unacceptable
Speaker 1: that was and how poor that was and how much
Speaker 1: I sucked. And you can't be doing that to yourself,
Speaker 1: and you flip it around and if your parents had
Speaker 1: said the same thing to you that you were saying
Speaker 1: to yourself, it wouldn't be a very healthy relationship. So,
Speaker 1: you know, I've always been a positive guy, but I
Speaker 1: could just you know, I was seventy five percent positive.
Speaker 1: I had to get one hundred percent positive. So everything
Speaker 1: that I did, every situation that I faced, I framed
Speaker 1: it as positively as possible. I could go on top one,
Speaker 1: but I could say to myself, you know what, man,
Speaker 1: your routine felt pretty good there, or you had the
Speaker 1: right club, or can't wait to hit this next shot
Speaker 1: and see if we can hit a great shot and
Speaker 1: then another great shot and make part on this whole.
Speaker 1: I did that in a PGA two event in Memphis.
Speaker 1: It was just a shot out of the blue, like
Speaker 1: a pool top that went about one hundred yards. I
Speaker 1: hit three with thirty forty yard short of the green,
Speaker 1: pitched onto two feet and made part. But if I'd
Speaker 1: have got in my own way of telling myself how
Speaker 1: bad that was, and you know, telling myself, I'm a
Speaker 1: PGA tour plan, I've just topped a ball and look
Speaker 1: at all those people watching. How embarrassing is that? I
Speaker 1: can't believe I'm a pros just done that. My mind
Speaker 1: just went immediately to let's frame this as positive as possible.
Speaker 1: Let's get onto the next shot. They said a great
Speaker 1: shot here, and they said another great shot. And that's
Speaker 1: what I did.
Speaker 2: What a great lesson. And many of those are in
Speaker 2: the book. And again we are going to get to
Speaker 2: the book. I'm just more fascinated about your development right now.
Speaker 1: I think I think that's why the book is so powerful,
Speaker 1: is because it is actually based in a realistic, actual
Speaker 1: things that happen. And you know, I like to think
Speaker 1: that things are taught better or easier or people understand
Speaker 1: things when it's based in things that happen everyday life.
Speaker 1: And I think that's a powerful way. You know, when
Speaker 1: you had teachers at school who could turn a very
Speaker 1: boring history lesson into something that came alive, where you
Speaker 1: put yourself in that battle or in that courtroom drama
Speaker 1: or whatever it was in that you know, you know,
Speaker 1: congressional meeting, whatever it was. When I heard those kinds
Speaker 1: of stories, I just lived at I was there. I imagined,
Speaker 1: I could you know, vividly imagine being you know, somewhere
Speaker 1: two hundred years ago. And I think that's the secret
Speaker 1: to good teaching, good write, in, good broadcast, in whatever
Speaker 1: it is. You've got to allow that person to experience
Speaker 1: what it is they experience and then help them change
Speaker 1: that experience.
Speaker 2: Are you self taught in all of all your development
Speaker 2: or did you have a variety of instructors from the
Speaker 2: beginning all the way through.
Speaker 1: Well, I was self taught until I was twenty six.
Speaker 1: With a golf swing. My dad was a genius without
Speaker 1: knowing it. He he as a kid, would have me
Speaker 1: I was a six and we would hit balls and
Speaker 1: he would put a stick on the other side of
Speaker 1: the ball and would tell me just to make the
Speaker 1: divot after the stick, you know, And as a six
Speaker 1: year old kid, you don't ask why, You just say, okay,
Speaker 1: I'll do that then, because my dad told me to
Speaker 1: do it, so it must be right. And that gave
Speaker 1: me a hundred lessons without him knowing it. It gave
Speaker 1: me a steady head, It gave me a good pivot,
Speaker 1: It gave me a flat left wrist to impact. He
Speaker 1: gave me weight transition. It did everything that you needed
Speaker 1: to do to hit the ball consistently. So I've never
Speaker 1: ever worried about making good contact with the ball because
Speaker 1: of that lesson when I was six. But you know
Speaker 1: I got through you know, junior golfert whatever level I
Speaker 1: played in England, I earned a scholarship to Auburn. Being
Speaker 1: self taught, which in many respects was, you know, maybe
Speaker 1: put me a little bit behind other people. But I
Speaker 1: think what I gained from it was I own my swing.
Speaker 1: I owned the DNA of my swing, so I was
Speaker 1: able to correct things way quicker than other people because
Speaker 1: I could correct things on the course because in effect,
Speaker 1: I was my own coach, whereas other players with way
Speaker 1: better swings than me, as soon as they hit one
Speaker 1: bad shot, you know, if mister coach isn't there, they
Speaker 1: don't know how to go to Plan B or how
Speaker 1: to correct when things go wrong. And so I knew
Speaker 1: that obviously I had to finally get a coach, and
Speaker 1: so when I was twenty six, I started working with
Speaker 1: a great coach called Wayne Flint, top one hundred instruct
Speaker 1: who lived close to where I lived in Birmingham, and
Speaker 1: that helped refine what it was I did already, but
Speaker 1: it didn't change the DNA of the swing. So I
Speaker 1: still had the belief and the feel and the understanding
Speaker 1: of the swing, but we just in effect knocked off
Speaker 1: the rough edges and with the golf psychology. I read
Speaker 1: a load of books, they didn't really speak to me,
Speaker 1: you know, Bob Rotello. I enjoyed those books, but it
Speaker 1: didn't feel like it was tailored to me. It was,
Speaker 1: you know, some lovely little anecdotes that I could get
Speaker 1: stuff from, but I needed something that was more for me,
Speaker 1: a personalized touch, and that's where Deborah Graham and John
Speaker 1: Stables book spoke to me. So then I started working
Speaker 1: with them on a one to one basis and that
Speaker 1: just helped solidify what I knew already. So it was
Speaker 1: kind of the same kind of thing with the swing
Speaker 1: and the mental side of the game. I was basically
Speaker 1: self taught and then had the experts come in and
Speaker 1: just knocked the rough edges off and just help the
Speaker 1: understanding a little further.
Speaker 2: Excellent. So what was harder getting to the tour or
Speaker 2: staying on the tour?
Speaker 1: Well, in many respects, I feel a bit like Jim Brown.
Speaker 1: Injury took my career before I really got a chance
Speaker 1: to enjoy it. So you certainly get into the tour
Speaker 1: was the hardest thing. Yeah, when I was playing it
Speaker 1: was top one twenty five would keep their card. I'll
Speaker 1: be honest, I don't think I had to play that
Speaker 1: well to keep my card. I earned my card on
Speaker 1: the corn for it to a play at a level
Speaker 1: I would call an A or an A minors to
Speaker 1: finish in the top twenty five, I finished ninth. And
Speaker 1: I played my rookie year on the PGA Tour. I
Speaker 1: made the FedEx Cup playoffs. I had six or seven
Speaker 1: top twenties, top ten, So I played, you know, had
Speaker 1: some good results, and I mean I would grade myself
Speaker 1: a B minors, maybe even a C plus. And I finished,
Speaker 1: you know, and got on the FedEx Cup playoffs. If
Speaker 1: I'd have played the way I'd played the previous year,
Speaker 1: I would have finished top seventy, I think pretty comfortably. So,
Speaker 1: you know, on the tour, you just it suited my
Speaker 1: game because it was about minimizing mistakes, and I tended
Speaker 1: to keep the ball in play. I tended to hit
Speaker 1: a lot of greens, and I tended not to beat myself,
Speaker 1: which would be a good name for a bookouldn't it.
Speaker 1: So that was the kind of the secret of playing
Speaker 1: on the on the PGA Tour, you just you know,
Speaker 1: everyone thinks you got to go super low out there.
Speaker 1: You don't. You just go, you shoot four rounds on
Speaker 1: the par You're going to make a fortune every year.
Speaker 1: And it was just I was unfortunate in that my game.
Speaker 1: You know, Yes, the course is a little bit harder,
Speaker 1: and it maybe highlighted a few of my weaknesses a
Speaker 1: little bit more than it did on the corn for
Speaker 1: a tour, But on the corn for a too, I
Speaker 1: was top twenty and part in on the tour, I
Speaker 1: was outside the top one hundred. And that was basically
Speaker 1: the difference between playing four good rounds five weeks in
Speaker 1: that year to play in three good rounds five weeks
Speaker 1: a year. And if you had played four good rounds,
Speaker 1: I would have had five top tens and finished in
Speaker 1: the top seventy pretty comfortably.
Speaker 2: You mentioned that I think this is a lesson for
Speaker 2: every golfer at every level, from beginner all the way through.
Speaker 2: But you know, everyone when you ask someone are you
Speaker 2: are you pretty good golfer? Andy? And I'll tell you no, no, no,
Speaker 2: I suck. I'm terrible. But everyone is going to say that.
Speaker 2: And here we have somebody who made it to the
Speaker 2: PGA Tour saying, yeah, I was a C plus B minus. Right.
Speaker 2: Even the best in the world will tell you no,
Speaker 2: you know. I mean, I've been telling people I'm not good,
Speaker 2: but I'm not that bad.
Speaker 1: It goes back to those fine lines. You know. The
Speaker 1: difference between a B minus year and an A minus
Speaker 1: year is tiny, It's minuscule, but that's the difference between
Speaker 1: finishing barely inside the FedEx Cup playoff spots and finishing
Speaker 1: well inside or finishing well outside. It is just it's
Speaker 1: so competitive out there, and you just you can't have weaknesses.
Speaker 1: That's that's the thing that kind of stands out to
Speaker 1: me the most. On the PGA too. Any weaknesses is
Speaker 1: magnified there because the penalty for a lack of skill
Speaker 1: and a department is just a little bit higher than
Speaker 1: it is anywhere else, and you get found out. And
Speaker 1: when you're playing against the top one hundred and fifty
Speaker 1: in the world, that basically, you know, that's a recipe
Speaker 1: for getting run over. So I was glad that what
Speaker 1: I was so glad I never had that overarching dream
Speaker 1: and goal of I have to play on the PGA Tour.
Speaker 1: My goal was to improve, to see how good I
Speaker 1: could get and wherever that took me, I would be delighted. So,
Speaker 1: you know, to go from being a part time player
Speaker 1: because I had a full time job in England. I'm
Speaker 1: one of the few PGA Tour players who's ever had
Speaker 1: a job as well. So I left school at eighteen
Speaker 1: and worked full time in the pensions field for two
Speaker 1: years just outside London, and I was playing twice a
Speaker 1: week and everyone was playing seven days a week. So
Speaker 1: you know it is to go from there to playing
Speaker 1: college goal for Auburn. What a massive jump that was,
Speaker 1: What an amazing journey that was. And if I'd have
Speaker 1: finished there and that was the limit to how good
Speaker 1: I could get, then I could have probably laid my
Speaker 1: head on the pillow and been fine about it. But
Speaker 1: then to go from there and be able to play
Speaker 1: on the mini tours and win thirty times, that's a
Speaker 1: pretty good career right there for someone who started where
Speaker 1: I started from. And then to go to the corn
Speaker 1: Free Tour and win two times there, that's an amazing story.
Speaker 1: To go from working as a pensions administrator to win
Speaker 1: in twice on the corn Free Tour and then to
Speaker 1: be a rookie make the Fedexcat Playoffs as a forty
Speaker 1: year old and play with tiger woods at the Barclays.
Speaker 1: That kind of puts the cherry on the top to
Speaker 1: know where you went from and where you finished that.
Speaker 1: But again, it was always just that I just want
Speaker 1: to see how good I can get, and I was
Speaker 1: glad to see that that was a PGA Tour level
Speaker 1: and to be one of the best players in the world.
Speaker 2: Man, congratulations on that. I'm fascinated. Do you think that
Speaker 2: it could ever happen again that a forty year old
Speaker 2: could make it to the tour as a rookie.
Speaker 1: I find it highly highly unlikely. It's just the standard
Speaker 1: of golf is so high. I was very lucky that
Speaker 1: I got right at the end of the PGA Tour,
Speaker 1: being obviously the best tour of the world, obviously incredible
Speaker 1: selection of players, but it was you know, there was
Speaker 1: that pathway through the corn free tour where you could
Speaker 1: use experience and you could, you know, kind of pay
Speaker 1: your dues, kind of like the old fashioned way of things,
Speaker 1: how things used to be. You would kind of learn
Speaker 1: how to fail for many many years on the on
Speaker 1: the mini tours and whatever, and then all of a
Speaker 1: sudden you would hit it just right and get through
Speaker 1: qualifying school and get on the PGA two and may
Speaker 1: or may not have a career, long term career, but
Speaker 1: it was possible to do. Now you got PGA two
Speaker 1: university where these university college students graduates the accelerated program.
Speaker 1: These guys are, they're in their teens or their early twenties,
Speaker 1: and they're the equivalent of thirty year old players that
Speaker 1: the the tools they have behind them. You know, they
Speaker 1: when you think of what I did, I was self
Speaker 1: taught to I was twenty six. Not one player is
Speaker 1: self taught. I didn't get into goal psychology till I
Speaker 1: was thirty three. Basically every single top college player will
Speaker 1: have a psychologist. Basically every top college player has a
Speaker 1: PGA to a team behind them as a teenager. And
Speaker 1: that's the difference. So they are they are so far
Speaker 1: and above what people from the previous generation were at
Speaker 1: their age that they are. You know, they're they're just incredible,
Speaker 1: incredible athletes and incredible players that have this amazing talent,
Speaker 1: but with that maturity added in. You throw that in
Speaker 1: with you know, players in how bigger, stronger, more powerful
Speaker 1: at you know, twenty five years old players they hit
Speaker 1: in it three hundred and forty yards and they're just
Speaker 1: playing pitch and park golf courses all the way, all
Speaker 1: year long. You know, forty year olds tend to hit
Speaker 1: it a little bit shorter than a twenty five year old.
Speaker 1: So you know, the way I look at the best
Speaker 1: way to explain it is through my experience of playing
Speaker 1: at the highest levels. I hit the ball, let's say
Speaker 1: two hundred and eighty five yards, I get paired with
Speaker 1: Rory McElroy, I get I have to give him forty
Speaker 1: yards on every single hole where we hit driver. Now,
Speaker 1: over one round, I might have one of those days
Speaker 1: with my seven irons where I just have that incredible
Speaker 1: ball striking round and they have a load of birdie
Speaker 1: chances with the seven nine, maybe two rounds, I might
Speaker 1: be able to stay in hang in there by doing
Speaker 1: having some incredible ball striking. But over the course of
Speaker 1: four rounds, a forty yard head start is gonna catch
Speaker 1: up with you, and you get no chance to compete
Speaker 1: without just having basically playing a perfect four days of
Speaker 1: golf ever free. And that's the difference. And that's where
Speaker 1: it's not just Rory who does that. It's one hundred players.
Speaker 1: The PGA tour and so that's that's the hardest thing
Speaker 1: to compete again. So you know, I'm very proud that
Speaker 1: I think I will be certainly, if not the last,
Speaker 1: very close to the last kind of story that that
Speaker 1: I think we can we can relate to. You know,
Speaker 1: I'm in every man we call a guy that did
Speaker 1: the best with what he had and didn't have the
Speaker 1: resources to do it any more than I was capable
Speaker 1: of doing. And I made it to live a dream.
Speaker 1: And you know, we will strive for that, don't we.
Speaker 1: We go through college and we we we try and
Speaker 1: get a job that will allow us to fulfill a dream.
Speaker 1: Some people start their own business because they have a dream.
Speaker 1: A lot of people fail, there's a few that succeed.
Speaker 1: And that's kind of kind of how I feel in
Speaker 1: that my dream, you know, came came to fruition. There's
Speaker 1: a hundred others whose dream just got was the roadkill
Speaker 1: on on mini tours where they invested a ton of
Speaker 1: money and time and effort and sweat equity, and at
Speaker 1: the end of it, they lost a load of money.
Speaker 1: And you know they didn't They're thirty years old and
Speaker 1: they're still driving a car. Put together with duct tape.
Speaker 1: And that's kind of how I was until I figured
Speaker 1: out how to be successful. It was such a fine
Speaker 1: line once again.
Speaker 2: And you were saying that you pretty much stopped had
Speaker 2: to stop playing because your body rebelled against you.
Speaker 1: Well, I just had a freak injury. Yeah. I always
Speaker 1: say I do some public speaking about my journey, and
Speaker 1: you know, using the life lessons and lessons in business.
Speaker 1: It's a very close parallel. But I always always get
Speaker 1: to kick. They always get a kick when I say
Speaker 1: the TV show The Bachelor ended my PGA tour career.
Speaker 1: Now I wasn't on it and got divorced or anything,
Speaker 1: but my wife and I would watch The Bachelor religiously
Speaker 1: because we all love a train wreck. And so playing
Speaker 1: in the Canadian Open, I just started playing really well
Speaker 1: on the tour my next my second year, my sophomore year.
Speaker 1: And I don't like the heat, and this was one
Speaker 1: of those perfect weeks in Canada. It was seventy degrees
Speaker 1: and you know, I just wanted to just get some
Speaker 1: fresh air in my body. And so I had dinner
Speaker 1: and I was going to go back to the hotel
Speaker 1: and watch The Bachelor, and I guess text backs and
Speaker 1: falls with my wife, and I said, you know what,
Speaker 1: I think I'm gonna I'll watch it on DVR when
Speaker 1: I get home. I'm going to go for a walk,
Speaker 1: and so I had an ice cream. I walked to
Speaker 1: a place called Bronte Harbor, which is on Lake Ontario,
Speaker 1: and I was just walking around through the woods and
Speaker 1: I walked over these rocks that were kind of like
Speaker 1: an embankment around the lake, and I slipped off the
Speaker 1: last rock and I paw my ACL mcl maniscus all
Speaker 1: at the same time. So my knee kneecap was jiggling
Speaker 1: at the spot that it shouldn't have jiggled, and that
Speaker 1: was basically I had had it repaired, and I tore
Speaker 1: it again in the corn Free Tour playoffs at that time,
Speaker 1: trying to get my tour car back, which you trying
Speaker 1: to get back, Yeah, so I was. I was around
Speaker 1: and four holes away from getting it back. I played
Speaker 1: really well for two rounds and then I got I
Speaker 1: got in a bunk with a massive steep face and
Speaker 1: hit it and I couldn't hold my balance and as
Speaker 1: I started falling back, I just heard it snap and
Speaker 1: swelled up like a grapefruit. And I I tried to
Speaker 1: gut it out the next day, and I think if
Speaker 1: I could have shot seventy one the last round, I
Speaker 1: could have got my tour I would have got my
Speaker 1: tour card back. And I think I shot seventy seven,
Speaker 1: but hobbled around on a tour in acl and you
Speaker 1: do what you have to do. And I had it
Speaker 1: repaired again and tore it again, and then I had
Speaker 1: it repaired again. So there was actually a special moment.
Speaker 1: This last year, I covered the PGA Tour event, the
Speaker 1: Canadian Open for PGA two Alive, and it was at
Speaker 1: Hamilton Golf and Country Club where I actually had my
Speaker 1: my loan top ten on the tour. So it was
Speaker 1: a special moment for me anyway to do that. But
Speaker 1: on the way back to the airport, I drove back
Speaker 1: to Bronte Harbor and I wanted to just go back
Speaker 1: to see if I could remember where it happened. And
Speaker 1: it was a it was a cathartic moment, but it
Speaker 1: was one that just just gave me goosebumps, just to
Speaker 1: you know, to be there and see the rock and
Speaker 1: remember being enough heat a crumpled heap on the floor
Speaker 1: and just right there sitting there saying, well, that's the
Speaker 1: dream over, and what do I do next? I remember
Speaker 1: vividly saying that, well, I'm not going to be playing
Speaker 1: golf anymore? What do I do now? And so it
Speaker 1: was it was special to see that. And then funnily enough,
Speaker 1: I flew over it on the way back home as well,
Speaker 1: so I saw it from a different angle. So it
Speaker 1: just it was almost like, you know, it's almost like
Speaker 1: a it's sort of like almost like the Hollywood ending
Speaker 1: the wrong way, but still something that you got something
Speaker 1: out of and you framed it the right way and
Speaker 1: you said, Okay, well here's the next challenge. What do
Speaker 1: I do now? And I've always been good about kind
Speaker 1: of moving on.
Speaker 2: Well, were you emotionless about what do I have to
Speaker 2: do next now that I know that my competitive play
Speaker 2: is over? Or did it take you a while to
Speaker 2: pick yourself up and figure something out?
Speaker 1: Yeah? It was surprisingly quick. As I said, I move
Speaker 1: on quickly. And I've talked to other players who were pissed.
Speaker 1: They were pissed at life that thinks, yeah, where they
Speaker 1: couldn't play anymore. And I guess one of the reasons
Speaker 1: was I just knew I couldn't play to the level
Speaker 1: that I was capable of playing that, So why get
Speaker 1: upset about it? You know, now move on and throw
Speaker 1: all of that energy that you threw into playing on
Speaker 1: the PGA two and get into the PGA two and
Speaker 1: having a fifteen year journey to get there. Well, now
Speaker 1: let's throw some energy into the next stage of things.
Speaker 1: And I wanted to get into broadcast and in my fifties,
Speaker 1: not in my forties, and I always felt like I
Speaker 1: was going to be good at it. I always enjoy
Speaker 1: talking to the media. I always enjoyed giving thoughtful answers,
Speaker 1: and so it was it was fortunately was able to
Speaker 1: make that transition through Sky Sports in the UK where
Speaker 1: they needed a British voice that had actually played the
Speaker 1: PGA Tour or their talent played on the dp World Tour,
Speaker 1: so I could add a different angle because I'd actually
Speaker 1: played the golf courses. So that was that was very,
Speaker 1: very fortunate to have been able to do that. I
Speaker 1: got to go home, I got to spend time with
Speaker 1: my mom and dad and my brother and my friends,
Speaker 1: and it was almost like, you know, I got a
Speaker 1: spiritual side to matters when you know, I thought, this
Speaker 1: is this was my next path. This is the I
Speaker 1: couldn't do anything about it. And I remember a lot
Speaker 1: of that was from I had, you know, I played
Speaker 1: a few weeks before that, The Travelers, and I played
Speaker 1: Ricky Founder, who that time was one of the top
Speaker 1: ten in the world, and I matched him shot for shot.
Speaker 1: I played unbelievable. I think he shot sixty six. I
Speaker 1: shot sixty seven in the last round. We were one
Speaker 1: of the PGA two a Live ats feature groups, one
Speaker 1: of the first ones they ever did, and so it
Speaker 1: was a pretty special day. But I remember I told
Speaker 1: about two three footers on seventeen and eighteen. They went in,
Speaker 1: but it didn't feel real comfortable. And I remember, you know,
Speaker 1: I finished top twenty. I think top twenty five had
Speaker 1: a nice check and I got a flight that night
Speaker 1: and I was sitting on the tarmac and my part
Speaker 1: rate was still one hundred and twenty or so. And
Speaker 1: this was three hours after i'd hold those parts, and
Speaker 1: I said to myself, Man, I don't know, I don't
Speaker 1: know if I want to do this anymore. I don't
Speaker 1: like the way it makes me feel physically. And then
Speaker 1: there you go. Two three weeks later, that was the
Speaker 1: end of that. That matters would take it out in
Speaker 1: my hand. So when you understand that you could, I
Speaker 1: think you can move on quicker in your next path.
Speaker 1: Your next part of the journey is I wouldn't know,
Speaker 1: maybe it's not pre ordained, but you're now guided to
Speaker 1: the next step of the journey.
Speaker 2: And part of the next step of your journey was
Speaker 2: writing a book, which I would love to talk about
Speaker 2: for a while now. First of all, you got me
Speaker 2: on the title was beat the Courus, not yourself. And
Speaker 2: what I really enjoyed about this book, and I just
Speaker 2: finished it the other night. I definitely made it all
Speaker 2: the way through and took lots of notes throughout the
Speaker 2: book is that many times when you that I've listened.
Speaker 2: I've read so many golf books over the years of
Speaker 2: doing this podcast and talking to various authors, especially books
Speaker 2: about the mental game. There you mentioned earlier anecdotal, they're
Speaker 2: you know, telling you how to how you know, they're
Speaker 2: really how to books on how to work your mental game,
Speaker 2: how to prepare yourself, how to work your pre shot
Speaker 2: routine and your post shot routine, how to get yourself
Speaker 2: out of a death spiral in your head. What I
Speaker 2: really enjoyed about this book and made it so relatable,
Speaker 2: and is why I was compelled to finish it is
Speaker 2: that it's a story. It's a novel, I guess, about
Speaker 2: a player who is a very good young player but
Speaker 2: struggling with his head and finally gets some coaching, and
Speaker 2: as he's going through it, you're going through it with him,
Speaker 2: so you feel what he's feeling, as opposed to being
Speaker 2: told what to feel. I really enjoyed that approach on
Speaker 2: the book, and I highly recommend it for anybody who
Speaker 2: likes reading about the Metal game, who likes discussing the
Speaker 2: Metal game. I think the book is really good and
Speaker 2: it's not a hard read and it's not really long.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Well, it's very kind of you, as I said
Speaker 1: it just I've read, you know, obviously throwing myself into
Speaker 1: the mental side of the game. I read, you know,
Speaker 1: dozens of books, and you know, with someone like me
Speaker 1: who is preordained to want to get information out of
Speaker 1: the book, there was a lot of books that I
Speaker 1: read that were just not very good. I would just
Speaker 1: read and say, when am I going to get to
Speaker 1: something that's going to help me? Because I know a
Speaker 1: lot of this anyway, but I need something. I need
Speaker 1: something to justify this twenty dollars and you know you
Speaker 1: can finally find, you know, a chapter or something. They
Speaker 1: would say, Okay, I can take something from that. But
Speaker 1: that's someone who is one hundred percent all in on
Speaker 1: the mental side of the game. If you're someone who's
Speaker 1: being pushed, dragging and screaming to the mental side of
Speaker 1: the games, you don't want to do it anyway, because
Speaker 1: you'd rather hit balls, and you'd rather get a new driver,
Speaker 1: and you'd rather get a new partter and more coaching.
Speaker 1: You know, you want to give them a reason to
Speaker 1: want to read and get something out of it and
Speaker 1: want to keep going beyond the first page and the
Speaker 1: second page and the third page. And so I think
Speaker 1: a story helps to do that because you know, as
Speaker 1: human we can we gravitate to emotion, and we gravitate
Speaker 1: to experiences, and we gravitate to putting ourselves in the
Speaker 1: position of a character. And so I wrote this originally
Speaker 1: for teenage competitive golfers to help them because they the
Speaker 1: tendency is the last thing they go to try and
Speaker 1: get better at. It is the mental side of the game,
Speaker 1: and most of them don't bother with it. And so
Speaker 1: it actually it kind of dovetails nicely and with the
Speaker 1: PGA coaching man or the ADM, which says about fifteen
Speaker 1: sixteen kids, you know, if they want to be competitive,
Speaker 1: should get a foundation in the mental side of the game.
Speaker 1: And so the character, the main character, Jack, obviously reflected that. So,
Speaker 1: you know, I thought originally it was kind of a
Speaker 1: niche book because teenage golfers and golf psychology. I can
Speaker 1: search all day and I'm not going to find too
Speaker 1: many books about that, or certainly not too many books
Speaker 1: that are worth a read. And so then I started thinking, well,
Speaker 1: I've taught a number of junior golfers, and you know,
Speaker 1: they're tough to teach because they are you know, they're
Speaker 1: finding out about themselves, and they're emotional, and you know,
Speaker 1: maybe they don't listen very well.
Speaker 2: And they know they know anything exactly.
Speaker 1: They travel all these tournaments, their parents take them, Their
Speaker 1: parents spend a ton of money, and their parents desperately
Speaker 1: want to see them do well. Their parents put pressure
Speaker 1: on them, and as a result, sometimes there's a little
Speaker 1: bit of friction between teenage athletes and parents. And so
Speaker 1: I thought, well, parents should read this book because parents
Speaker 1: will actually now understand what their kids are going through.
Speaker 1: These kids aren't trying to make a double bogie with
Speaker 1: a wedge to piss you off. They're trying their hardest.
Speaker 1: But when they're not mentally and emotionally focused and in
Speaker 1: the right spot and understand any kind of plan of
Speaker 1: what it is they're trying to do, they're going to
Speaker 1: make mistake after mistake after mistake. And so I would
Speaker 1: talk to and they would be pissed at their kids
Speaker 1: by they would say, hey, look, I'm spend all this
Speaker 1: money on lessons. Why is it he keeps making these
Speaker 1: dumb double bogies? And I said, well, you know, I've
Speaker 1: been trying to help him with the mental side of
Speaker 1: the game, or I've been trying to help him with
Speaker 1: the preparation side of the game, and he doesn't want
Speaker 1: to listen and he doesn't apply it. I try my hardest,
Speaker 1: but if he can hear it from you as well
Speaker 1: as me, that may help him or her be a
Speaker 1: little bit more focused on how they go about the game.
Speaker 1: And more importantly, it gives the parent a little bit
Speaker 1: more empathy of what their kid is going through, because,
Speaker 1: as I said, the kid wants desperately to please their parents.
Speaker 1: And you know, when things go wrong and they don't
Speaker 1: know why things are going wrong, it can get so frustrated.
Speaker 1: And when the hormones are raging and you're trying to
Speaker 1: get through school and you maybe got a boyfriend or
Speaker 1: a girlfriend, you know, there's a lot of stuff going
Speaker 1: on up there. And so I think this really helps
Speaker 1: that relationship as well. And so you know, there was
Speaker 1: a chapter in the book with a you know, as juniors,
Speaker 1: they've all experienced this, they've played badly. They've got to
Speaker 1: get in the car and their dad's driving or their
Speaker 1: mum's driving, and you get that horrible, uncomfortable, silent journey
Speaker 1: back home because the kids in the back simmering about
Speaker 1: he shot eighty five again, the parents in the front
Speaker 1: thinking I've just given up another half a day to
Speaker 1: watch this and I've spent all this money on lessons,
Speaker 1: and the two kind of talk, and you know, the
Speaker 1: kid Jack gets everything off his chest. The parent shows
Speaker 1: some empathy and shows and says, why don't we try
Speaker 1: this path with this wise older pro that I think
Speaker 1: can help you. And so now you've got teenagers, now
Speaker 1: you've got their parents. But these lessons also pertain to
Speaker 1: anyone with a pencil in the hand, whether it's a
Speaker 1: dog fight at the weekend once a month, whether it's
Speaker 1: a club championship, whether it's playing in the little corporate
Speaker 1: day or a scramb or whatever it is. We can
Speaker 1: do better when we go out and play with a
Speaker 1: pencil on our hand. And you know, we work really
Speaker 1: hard during the week and we want to desperately do
Speaker 1: well and perform well. We're r on the golf course.
Speaker 1: But when we beat ourselves at all times, it makes
Speaker 1: it so hard. And so a lot of people I teach.
Speaker 1: I teach a lot of successful businessmen and business women,
Speaker 1: and I say, look, if you run your business the
Speaker 1: way you run your golf game, you go bankrupt. You
Speaker 1: have no plan. You've got to have a business plan
Speaker 1: in whatever limited time that you have. We understand you
Speaker 1: don't have time to practice hundreds and hundreds of balls
Speaker 1: a week. So we've got to use the game that
Speaker 1: you have and set yourself up for the most successful
Speaker 1: the most success you can possibly have. And it basically
Speaker 1: all starts from before you ever moved the golf club.
Speaker 1: If you can give yourself that great business plan before
Speaker 1: you move the golf club, you've got a chance for
Speaker 1: success based on whatever level of talent that you have.
Speaker 2: So this character, this older character that's in the book,
Speaker 2: Charlie Right, he's got wisdom beyond his years, and you're
Speaker 2: able to bring it through in the book in so
Speaker 2: many different ways. Who is he patterned after?
Speaker 1: Well, there may or may not be a handsome young
Speaker 1: englishman at the end of it with an American actions book.
Speaker 1: It was what I really enjoyed was I got to
Speaker 1: play every character. I was a junior golf for once.
Speaker 1: I was a parent dealing with disappointments from my kids
Speaker 1: playing soccer and basketball. I was a or I am
Speaker 1: a coach who has thirty years of experience around golf.
Speaker 1: I volunteered to be a college coach for three months
Speaker 1: just to learn a little bit more about how to
Speaker 1: deal with kids and what they go through and what
Speaker 1: they experienced. So I got to experience every single character.
Speaker 1: The only character I wasn't was the nick, the antagonist,
Speaker 1: the one that was a little bit too for his boot.
Speaker 1: So exactly, yeah, I was even you know, Matt, He's
Speaker 1: best friend. You know, you've just got to have those
Speaker 1: those relationships, those close relationships with people. But I think
Speaker 1: there's I want to say there is. And I think
Speaker 1: this is a big part because of podcasting, where now
Speaker 1: we get wisdom talked about a little bit more than
Speaker 1: we that we maybe have over the last ten twenty
Speaker 1: thirty years, you know, to get better, you know, the
Speaker 1: last twenty years. It's all about where you have lessons.
Speaker 1: You do this, you hit these numbers, you do this
Speaker 1: on track, man, you hit this line on a video screen,
Speaker 1: and you know, to be honest, for some people it works.
Speaker 1: For most they don't have time to really change anything fundamentally,
Speaker 1: and so you can have this great lesson, but you know,
Speaker 1: after you've hit your bucket of ball, you're probably not
Speaker 1: going to hit another bucket of balls correctly until you
Speaker 1: see the next lesson. And so people, I think get
Speaker 1: frustrated and they're paying always money for a swing lesson.
Speaker 1: And you know, yeah, my numbers look better and this
Speaker 1: line looks better on the screen, But I keep shooting
Speaker 1: the same score, and I keep hitting the same shots,
Speaker 1: and I keep making the same mistakes. And so now
Speaker 1: there's a lot more podcast involved with wisdom and an
Speaker 1: experience and turning fives into fours and a different approach
Speaker 1: to be able to help you score better. You know,
Speaker 1: the short game, the chipping, the put in. If you
Speaker 1: want low hanging fruit and you want a swing lesson,
Speaker 1: you want a lesson that's the lowest hanging fruit you
Speaker 1: can possibly have. You just get good fundamentals chipping, you're
Speaker 1: going to shave a tonne straps of your twenty handicapper.
Speaker 1: I find it really hard to get someone to commit
Speaker 1: to that. They want swing lessons, so they hit seven
Speaker 1: fairways with their driver, hit two in the trees, and
Speaker 1: they want to hit none in the trees. Well, you know,
Speaker 1: if there are a fifteen handicapper and they hit none
Speaker 1: in the trees instead of two in the trees in
Speaker 1: the big scheme of things, they're probably going to screw
Speaker 1: up the next shot and the chip in the part
Speaker 1: and they're going to shoot the same And so why
Speaker 1: not if you're going to miss fifteen greens, learn how
Speaker 1: to chip and part and so, ye know, just by
Speaker 1: using just common sense. And you know, we call it analytics,
Speaker 1: but it's just common sense of if you miss a
Speaker 1: load of greens and you don't chip very well, or
Speaker 1: you're leaving a lot of you're leaving a lot on
Speaker 1: the table. You if you have forty parts every round
Speaker 1: and you only hit four greens, you're leaving a lot
Speaker 1: on the table there. And so we can look at
Speaker 1: things differently that you know, we can I like to
Speaker 1: do playing lessons where I like to see someone on
Speaker 1: the golf course and you know, most.
Speaker 2: Swing decision making.
Speaker 1: Exactly, Yeah, most coaches spent swing coaches spend an hour
Speaker 1: on the on the range and they see the student
Speaker 1: hit it great, and then it's almost like, well, there
Speaker 1: you go. I've done my job. It's all up to you.
Speaker 1: Now you've got to get on golf course. You've got
Speaker 1: to have.
Speaker 2: Right because if you're giving a playing lesson at the range,
Speaker 2: you're either hitting off of a mat or off of grass.
Speaker 2: But there's no uneven lies you're doing. You're not you know,
Speaker 2: you don't have any trees in your way. You're just
Speaker 2: looking at flags. So there's so many more elements. I mean,
Speaker 2: part of a major part of what I've been trying
Speaker 2: to do with golf smarter is to become a smarter
Speaker 2: golfer in the mental game. And we talked to a
Speaker 2: lot of mental coaches in a wide variety of you know,
Speaker 2: from mindfulness to brain functionality, right, and it seems to
Speaker 2: be our wheelhouse, although I do like to cover, you know,
Speaker 2: an eclectic mix of golf stories and golf people, but
Speaker 2: it really we really have focused on on the mental
Speaker 2: side of the game. And one of the lines is
Speaker 2: that you have in your book that really jumped at
Speaker 2: me because I've not read it anywhere else, but we've
Speaker 2: been saying it on the podcast forever, and my audience
Speaker 2: right now, if they've been listening a while, they know
Speaker 2: where I'm headed with this because I learned it from
Speaker 2: a listener and been saying it. Not only do I
Speaker 2: say it for every round I play, but I've been
Speaker 2: saying it on the show hundreds of times. We say,
Speaker 2: never follow a bad shot with a stupid shot, but
Speaker 2: you enhanced that for me in a way I never
Speaker 2: really realized. And on page fifty six, at least off
Speaker 2: the pdf that I was reading, the worst thing you
Speaker 2: can do is follow up a poor shot with a
Speaker 2: dumb shot, trying to make up for the previous one.
Speaker 2: That was in AHA moment for me.
Speaker 1: Well, what again, It's that common sense, isn't it It is?
Speaker 1: You know, we just we try and do too much.
Speaker 1: We try and do more than maybe our talent levels
Speaker 1: are capable of, I think is the worst thing you
Speaker 1: can look at on a scorecard. If you're fifteen par
Speaker 1: isn't part pars bogie. And so you know, I like
Speaker 1: to I like to talk to players, and I say,
Speaker 1: I think dogfight points are the greatest way of playing
Speaker 1: golf because you see the value of a point. So
Speaker 1: if you're a fifteen handicap and you don't have a
Speaker 1: very high quota, you know you can maybe finding three
Speaker 1: or four holes where in the past you would have
Speaker 1: played a dumb shot with a three would out of
Speaker 1: the rough trying to get it on the green, and
Speaker 1: you learn that, you know, maybe a five iron and
Speaker 1: then pitching on from forty yards maybe an easy way
Speaker 1: to make a point. What happens is we get in
Speaker 1: a cycle of and that's what I'm talking about in
Speaker 1: the book of is just the cycle of you know,
Speaker 1: the way a round of golf unfolds or shots unfolds.
Speaker 1: So you have a shot, you know, I want you
Speaker 1: to have a nice, productive athletic routine. So if you
Speaker 1: do that athletic routine, the chance says, ah, you're going
Speaker 1: to hit a decent shot. And then after you've hit
Speaker 1: that shot, you can kind of pack yourself in the back,
Speaker 1: or you can say, oh, that wasn't very good, and
Speaker 1: then you can objectively look at it and say, what
Speaker 1: could I have done better? You know, maybe I didn't
Speaker 1: have the right club there, and I really should have
Speaker 1: hit the seven instead of the eight. Okay, well, there's
Speaker 1: a little reminder for the next time I'm in that situation.
Speaker 1: And then you spend the next four minutes walking to
Speaker 1: the next shot, and you're in a good mental space,
Speaker 1: and you know, you enjoy talking with your playing partner.
Speaker 1: You're looking at the trees and the houses and the
Speaker 1: birds and then whatever else. And then as a result,
Speaker 1: you're in a good headspace for the next shot. You
Speaker 1: produce a good routine, you hit a decent shot, and
Speaker 1: so the cycle continues. The cycle also continues the wrong way,
Speaker 1: where you don't have a routine, or if you have
Speaker 1: a routine, you don't do it very well. You hit
Speaker 1: an awful shot, you tell yourself how much you suck.
Speaker 1: Then you stew about it for that five minutes to
Speaker 1: the next shot. You're trying to figure out all these
Speaker 1: swing thoughts and all these things that one coach told
Speaker 1: you five years ago. Another coach told you last week.
Speaker 2: And then a video that you saw this morning.
Speaker 1: Yeah, right, that YouTube thing you'd pulled up, you know,
Speaker 1: all of those things, and then you get to the
Speaker 1: next shot, Well, your mind is in you know, is
Speaker 1: complete disarray. It's like fireworks going off up there, all
Speaker 1: the distractions, which means then you can't focus on the
Speaker 1: next shot. You then hit another bad shot, and then
Speaker 1: that cycle continues as well. So what I'm trying to
Speaker 1: do is, in as practical simple terms as possible, is
Speaker 1: help that player with those steps. And number one, it
Speaker 1: comes from how do you practice? If you have time
Speaker 1: to practice, you know, learn from what it is you practice,
Speaker 1: and learn from what it is you can do on
Speaker 1: the practice range, because if you if you if you
Speaker 1: try and hit a shot that you don't try on
Speaker 1: the practice range, you shouldn't be hitting that shot because
Speaker 1: you don't know if you hit it or not.
Speaker 2: Just because you say it on TV doesn't mean you
Speaker 2: can't do it.
Speaker 1: And again, you know, you might have seen Rory McElroy
Speaker 1: hit a punch cut with a seven nine into a
Speaker 1: thirty mile hour wind in the Irish Open, but you're
Speaker 1: a fifteen handicap who's never tried to hit a punch
Speaker 1: cut and they're like, and you might lay the st
Speaker 1: over it instead of just hitting the shot and then
Speaker 1: you know, chipping it on from short with the green.
Speaker 1: What was what really brought that to my mind, to
Speaker 1: the forefront of my mind when I when I did
Speaker 1: that volunteer coaching for a local college, I had a
Speaker 1: kid that was was showing a bit of promise, was
Speaker 1: paying attention, and he got to a tooment, was playing
Speaker 1: really well, and he got to the seventeenth I think,
Speaker 1: a part three, and I was following it on golfstat
Speaker 1: and he was two or three under power I think,
Speaker 1: and he makes a six on the path three. And
Speaker 1: I called him after I said, man, what a great
Speaker 1: round of golf. What happened on that path three? He'said, oh, man,
Speaker 1: it was you know, you know, it was a thirty
Speaker 1: mile hour wind into me and it was a path three,
Speaker 1: and you know I had to hit that punch drawer
Speaker 1: in there because you know, the wind was coming you know,
Speaker 1: into left or right really hard. And I said, you know,
Speaker 1: you've never tried to hit that shot before, have you?
Speaker 1: He said, no, no, but but it was the shot
Speaker 1: that it called for. I remember distinctly said that was
Speaker 1: the shot that it called for. But if you don't
Speaker 1: know how even the start of how to hit that shot,
Speaker 1: and you pull that out in the talent when you're
Speaker 1: playing great man, it's not a good it's not a
Speaker 1: good idea. So we pulled it straight out of bounds
Speaker 1: and made a triple and it just we're in an
Speaker 1: unbelievable round with one poor decision. And so we got
Speaker 1: on the range that next week and I just said, look,
Speaker 1: you hit this beautiful, solid drawer every single time you
Speaker 1: hit this great shot. It's a strong shot. You know
Speaker 1: you have you can take the spin off because you
Speaker 1: hit it so strongly through the wind. You didn't need
Speaker 1: to try and hit that shot. And then the next
Speaker 1: time we had a big wind, we went on the
Speaker 1: practice range, went straight into the wind. I said, just
Speaker 1: hit your shot and it was amazing, went through the wind.
Speaker 1: And he said, yeah, and I see the validity now.
Speaker 1: I think you were right. But there's so many just
Speaker 1: simple lessons there that you know, if you read it,
Speaker 1: you will put yourself in the positions that Jack faces,
Speaker 1: and you will see yourself and you will see the
Speaker 1: decisions you make, and you will see the decisions he makes.
Speaker 1: And say, ah, yes, I know exactly what he's going through.
Speaker 1: I can't wait to read the rest of this book
Speaker 1: because I know we're going to get the secret to
Speaker 1: what to do next. And you get that, and then
Speaker 1: you see him put it into practice in the big
Speaker 1: tournament at the end of the book, and then a
Speaker 1: college coach comes up to him, congratulates him and tells
Speaker 1: him that's exactly the kind of things he's looking for
Speaker 1: when he's recruiting. So it kind of puts a nice
Speaker 1: bow in it at the end.
Speaker 2: YEP, it does. I'm going to read off a couple
Speaker 2: of the lines that jumped out to me and I'll
Speaker 2: just it's just to reinforce to somebody that they should
Speaker 2: go out and buy this book, that this is the
Speaker 2: kind of topics that you cover that we've been covering
Speaker 2: for years on the podcast. And I just felt so
Speaker 2: supported on this this one. Play the course, not the competition,
Speaker 2: really important note message, right because we're like so worried
Speaker 2: about oh my god, they just birdied the hole and
Speaker 2: I boge, you, what am I going to do now?
Speaker 1: Right?
Speaker 2: Stay in the moment and just win this shot. Don't
Speaker 2: worry about the score. Don't worry that you need to
Speaker 2: get a part in this whole just win this shot.
Speaker 2: I love that.
Speaker 1: We were actually originally going to call the book win
Speaker 1: the next shot. Wow, Okay, I mean that that was
Speaker 1: a great lesson in that. But again it goes back
Speaker 1: to if you've got a productive routine, what it does.
Speaker 1: It focuses the mind on exactly what it is you're
Speaker 1: trying to do. And it also kind of acts as
Speaker 1: a bit of a force field around your mind and
Speaker 1: you from all those distractions of score and what else
Speaker 1: other people are doing. And you know what it would
Speaker 1: mean if I had a good result here all of
Speaker 1: those things we're always facing, and if we're a fifteen handicapper,
Speaker 1: we're facing you know, my buddy's laughing at me because
Speaker 1: I've just top one. You know, we want to get
Speaker 1: our mind one hundred percent focus on the next shot
Speaker 1: as well as we possibly can.
Speaker 2: Well, it's a high recommendation my part for this book.
Speaker 2: I really enjoyed it. Again. It's called Beat the Course,
Speaker 2: Not Yourself by Gary Christian and you can also go
Speaker 2: to Gary's website which is Gary christiangolf dot com. Gary,
Speaker 2: this is a blast. Thanks so much for your time.
Speaker 1: Man, I really enjoyed it, and yeah, the book self published,
Speaker 1: so it's on Amazon. So if you search, I can't
Speaker 1: believe I said Amazon, Amazon, I would call it in England.
Speaker 1: So the course not yourself on Amazon for the price
Speaker 1: of a sleeve of golf balls. It will be it
Speaker 1: will certainly last longer than the sleeve of golf balls,
Speaker 1: and it will give you that game plan. It will
Speaker 1: give you a game plan of practice, how to talk
Speaker 1: to yourself, how to have a routine, how to put
Speaker 1: it into practice. And that's ultimately what we want. We
Speaker 1: want to take it from the practice range or the
Speaker 1: indoor hidden map to the golf course. That's why we practice,
Speaker 1: that's why we hit balls indoors, because we want it
Speaker 1: to work on the course.